


Crushes Aren't Embarrassing

by AQueen



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Insecure Derek Hale, M/M, One Shot, Pre-Slash, Spark Stiles Stilinski
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-23 15:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19704415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AQueen/pseuds/AQueen
Summary: Stiles has never seen a crush as something to be embarrassed about. So what if he thinks someone is awesome? He's not shy in letting Derek know, even if Derek doesn't like him back. It's not a big deal. Cora doesn't agree.





	Crushes Aren't Embarrassing

“Derek,” Stiles says walking into the loft for the pack meeting, “You look great today.”

Derek glances at him from where he’s sitting in the armchair but doesn’t say anything.

“What the fuck, Stilinski?” Cora says. She just arrived in Beacon Hills this morning, having spent the last year in South America with her pack there. She’s sitting on the couch closest to Derek, curled up in the corner.

“What?” Stiles asks, sinking into the armchair across from Derek.

“What are your intentions with my brother?” She sits up and turns to face Stiles intently. Stiles is very glad that he arrived early, and that no one else is here.

“Uh, nothing?”

“What do you mean nothing? The pack told me you have a crush on him.”

“Cora,” Derek growls.

Stiles feels his face flush. He’s not embarrassed about his crush but he’d rather not talk about it, “Yeah, well he doesn’t like me back so I don’t know what intentions you think I should have.”

“You have to want something, I’ve heard how you act around him, and saw it just now. I know you don’t give compliments out to others that easily. So what do you want?”

“Nothing,” Stiles insists, though it’s a lie, because he does want Derek to feel loved and that’s something. His heart must skip a beat when he says it because now they’re both looking at him distrustfully. Shit. “I don’t want anything from him.” And that’s the truth. Derek seems to be okay with that as he returns to scowling at the door. Cora is still watching him though.

Stiles avoids her gaze, and thankfully Scott chooses that moment to walk in with Kira, and there’s no way he was listening because Kira is talking. The rest of the pack file in shortly after and they start the meeting to figure out what they’re going to do with the pixies.

***

Stiles pants as the last pixie falls. There had been a plan, a good plan in which they didn’t have to kill all the pixies, but apparently the pixies weren’t on board with it. The whole pack is standing around now, though most of them had arrived as the fight was ending.

Stiles takes a few steps closer to Derek and leans against him, because he can, and he thinks he twisted his ankle, “Dude, you were amazing!” He’d taken out half of the pixies by himself, which, totally badass.

“Stilinski!” Cora shouts, which is unnecessary because she’s not that far away. “Get off my brother.” She sounds a little angry.

Stiles straightens up, takes a careful step away from Derek. He also quickly casts a spell that will gradually return his scent to normal, not letting any of the wolves pick up on his new emotions.

“You know he doesn’t like you back, so why do you keep trying?” she marches closer.

Stiles sees Derek tense out of the corner of his eye, “I’m not trying anything. Him not liking me, doesn’t stop me from liking him. We’re still friends, or pack, at least.”

Cora stares at him, unimpressed. “Yeah, well you don’t need to be shoving it in his face all the time.”

Stiles stares back for a moment before risking a glance at Derek, who’s staring away from Stiles, glaring at the trees. “I didn’t mean to, I thought…” Stiles trails off.

“That with enough compliments he’d start to like you? It’s fucking creepy, Stilinski.”

Stiles looks around at the rest of the pack, but they either avoid his gaze or look pitying. So they all think he’s creepy. Why didn’t anybody say anything sooner? “Okay,” his voice cracks, awesome. “Okay, well I’ll stop. I didn’t realize.”  
He turns and starts walking away, doing his best not to favour his right leg. He thinks it’s working.

“Derek,” he hears Cora say behind him, “What are you doing?”

“Going to help, he’s limping.” Derek growls. Stiles tries to adjust his gait to hide it.

“He’s not your responsibility just cause he likes you.”

“No,” Derek agrees. Stiles closes his eyes briefly, as if that would stop the hurt. “He’s my responsibility because he’s pack. I’m his alpha and he got hurt helping me.”

Cora scoffs, “Whatever, Mr. Alpha, he’s faking it, though. He doesn’t even smell hurt.”

  
Derek growls, “He blocked his scent. If you paid attention to more than just making him feel bad, you would have noticed.” Derek catches up to him a few seconds later, which is when Stiles realizes that he was walking very slowly. Derek ducks under Stiles’ right arm, and wraps his left around Stiles’ waist. Stiles very carefully avoids looking at him. They walk in silence back to the Hale house where they parked their cars. Stiles tries to move towards the jeep but Derek pulls him towards the camaro.

“Hey, what. No. I can drive.” Stiles protests.

Derek turns his head slightly, “You’re not driving, you're in so much pain.”

“I am not!” Stiles says, “I’m not in any pain at all.”

Derek rolls his eyes, “that’s because I took it.”

“Exactly. I’ll be fine.” Stiles tries to extract himself from Derek’s hold but Derek just tightens his grip.

As they near the car Stiles gets ready to bolt, as if he’ll be able to make it more than two steps before Derek catches him again. Derek’s arm loosens and this is his chance except instead of lifting away Derek’s arm slithers further around him and into Stiles’ pocket.

Stiles squeaks, glad his scent is masked because Derek’s hand is very close. Next thing he knows Derek is pulling his keys out of his pocket. He tosses the keys over his shoulder and Stiles cranes his neck around to see Scott holding them.

“Scott! If you crash-“

“Yeah, yeah. I know, Stiles. It’ll be okay.”

Stiles whimpers as Scott climbs into the jeep, not even paying attention as Derek gets him into the car.

“It’s not that big of a deal.” Derek says as he climbs into the driver’s side.

Stiles continues to watch Scott, “yeah? Then how come we aren’t taking the jeep and someone else could drive your car.”

“Because my car is nice.”

Stiles whips around in his seat to gape at Derek, mouth opening and closing in shock, “You can’t just insult Roscoe like that!”

Derek shrugs, and Stiles turns away again to stare out the window as Derek drives him home.

“Stiles?” Derek says cautiously when he stops in front of the Stilinski house, “Don’t let Cora get to you.”

“No, she’s right. The whole pack thinks so. You don’t like me back and I-“

“I’m sorry,” Derek interrupts.

Stiles waves him off, “Don’t apologize, you can’t choose who you like. It’s whatever, I’m- anyway. I’ve been creepy. I’m going to stop now. Bye, Derek.”

“Stiles-“

Stiles shuts the door behind him as he gets out. He doesn’t need to listen to Derek try to make him feel better about being creepy towards Derek! That’s just all kinds of messed up.

“Stiles?” his dad calls as he walks through the door.

“Hey, Dad.”

He hears shuffling from the living room, and then “Stiles?” again as his dad comes into the front entryway. “What happened? I thought you said you had a plan to take care of the pixies without violence?”

“We forgot to tell the pixies.”

His dad shakes his head and pulls Stiles into a hug.

***

“Stilinski!” Cora calls as she pries open his window. Stiles watches her from in front of his computer, utterly unimpressed.

“We have a front door, you know.” Stiles says as she steps into his room.

She waves his statement away, “Look, Derek has been super pouty lately, and it started when you stopped complimenting him all the time, so I need you to start again, okay?” She looks at him expectantly, as if she’s doing Stiles a favour.

“You’re joking right?” he asks, spinning in his chair so he’s facing her.

She shakes her head, “Look, it’s a win win all around. You get to go back to fawning all over Derek, Derek will be less pouty which is better for the whole pack, yourself included.”

“I’m not a compliment machine that you get to turn on and off whenever you want, Cora!” Stiles stands angrily.

She rolls her eyes, “I don’t see what the big deal is, Stilinski.”

“Of course you don’t. It doesn’t matter anyway. I’m going back to university next month, so I won’t be around anyway.”

Cora snorts, “You go to BHU, you’ll still be around.”

Stiles flexes his hands at his sides, “I transferred.”

“What? Why would you do that?”

Stiles rolls his eyes, “Why do you care? You don’t like me, and you’re not going to be here anyway. I’m just sorry I can’t leave sooner. Now if you wouldn’t mind,” he gestures at the window.

***

Stiles kind of expects various pack members to come confront him about his change in university, but no one comes which means either Cora didn’t tell them, or they don’t care. He doesn’t understand why Cora wouldn’t tell anybody, which means they must not care, which Stiles wasn’t expecting.

He forces himself to go to the next pack meeting. He’s the last to arrive this time, since he’s trying to avoid being alone with Derek as much as possible. He settles into the last empty chair, still directly across from Derek, which he’s surprised about but he supposes everyone already has their seats, and since Stiles has sat in this spot so often, he’s stuck here again.

Derek looks amazing. He’s wearing a soft blue henley, and worn looking jeans. He looks comfy, and relaxed. Stiles keeps those thoughts to himself though.

As he’s settling into his spot, Cora says, “I have some news.”

The pack looks up at her curiously.

“Stiles transferred to a different university.”

Stiles gapes at her as all attention turns to him.

The pack all start talking at once.

“Why didn’t you tell us?”

“Where are you going?”

“Why?”

Stiles takes the time to throw up another spell to block himself from wolfy senses. He’s getting very good at it and it makes him a little sad to know why.

Derek growls to get everybody to shut up then nods at Stiles.

“I’m, uh, going to Harvard.” He says, avoiding everybody’s gaze.

The questions start up again, everybody talking over everybody else until Lydia shuts them up with a single statement.

“You’re lying.”

“No, I’m not.” He says quickly. Shit. Way to sound like a liar. “I mean, why would I do that?”

“I don’t know yet,” she says, narrowing her eyes as she studies him. Stiles squirms uncomfortably.

“Jesus, Stiles, again?”

Stiles turns to Derek, innocent mask firmly in place.

“What again?” Cora asks.

“When did Stiles tell you he was transferring?” Jackson asks from where he’s sitting with Lydia, “And why you? I think he hates you more than me.”

Stiles stares down at his hands where he’s fiddling with the hem of his shirt.

“It was the other day at his house, we were talking.”

“Sounds suspicious,” Erica pipes up, “What were you talking about?”

“Derek was being mopey. I was trying to help!”

“What did you say?” Scott asks. Stiles would really like to melt into his chair right now. Or spontaneously combust, that’d be cool too.

“I just asked him to start complimenting Derek again. It’s not like it’s a big deal.” She says defensively.

“Ahh,” Lydia says. Stiles doesn’t want to know what connection she thinks she’s made. It’s probably the correct one which is why he doesn’t want to hear it.

“Cora!” Derek growls.

Spontaneous combustion in three, two, one. “Damn it,” Stiles says. The room goes quiet and Stiles peeks up to see everybody staring at him in various states of confusion.

“But what does that have to do with Harvard?” Isaac asks, drawing everybody’s attention, briefly, away from Stiles.

Lydia is the one who answers, “If he was at Harvard he wouldn’t be expected to come home. It’s too far for a weekend trip.”

Stiles chews on his lip and studies his cuticles. He should really take care of those, they look terrible. Lydia would probably help him. Tell him everything he needs to know to have really nice cuticles. Stiles hasn’t really looked at her cuticles but he’s sure they’re perfect. He could probably bribe her with-

“Stiles!”

Stiles looks up to see the pack staring at him, “What?”

Cora rolls her eyes but Stiles ignores her. Mostly.

“Maybe we should get on to the actual meeting stuff, instead of whether or not I’m going to Harvard. Right? Okay! So last week was pixies, what’re we dealing with this week? What weird things are happening around town?” He looks around at the pack expectantly. They exchange glances.

“It’s been quiet.” Boyd finally supplies.

“What the fuck, Beacon Hills?” Stiles says. The one time he actually wants something to be happening and there’s nothing? Not that he wants people to be dying or for the pack to have to fight again, but really?

“We should watch a movie!” Kira suggests, “We haven’t had a proper movie night since we graduated.”

There are nods all around, and Stiles thinks he could kiss her as the attention shifts away from him and towards deciding on a movie.

***

Derek sneaks into Stiles’ room near the end of summer, one week before he’s set to start school again. At BHU, because Lydia wasn’t wrong. Stiles glances over his shoulder as Derek crawls through the window but otherwise doesn’t react to his presence.

Derek straightens and goes to peer over Stiles’ shoulder at what he’s looking at on his laptop. He scans the page, it’s about… nachzehrer? “What is that?”

Stiles glances up at him, “some sort of german vampire-like creature.”

Derek tenses and spins towards the window.

“Woah, slow down there, buddy. There’s no need to go racing off. There’s nothing in Beacon Hills.”

Derek turns back around, “then why are you researching them?”

“I’m adding to the bestiary.”

Derek shakes his head with a smirk, “Do you wanna take a break?”

Stiles glances at his screen once more before spinning around in his chair to face Derek, “sure.”

“Can we talk?”

“Uh oh. Those aren’t exactly encouraging words you know.”

Derek huffs, this isn’t really going the way he expected. Not that that’s surprising since Stiles is involved. “I wanted to talk about what happened this summer, with Cora and the compliments, and,” he hesitates, Stiles is already shaking his head, “your crush…on me.”

“Dude! You really didn’t need to say it! And we really don’t need to talk about it, it’s fine. No hard feelings or whatever.” Stiles flaps a hand around, spinning a bit in his chair.

“I wanted to apologize-“

“It’s fin-“

“-for not returning-“

“Seriously, it’s fine.”

“Why do you always have to do that?”

“Do what?” Stiles asks, looking confused. Derek will admit he’s getting better at lying. His face actually cooperates now.

“The sense blocking… thing!”

“I’m not!”

Derek glares at him which doesn’t bother Stiles in the slightest, it hasn’t in years and Derek is man enough to admit, to himself at least, that sometimes he misses when all he had to do was glare to get his way.

They continue to stare at each other until Derek glances away, looking for a way to know for sure. He trusts Stiles not to lie to him about anything important, he’s just not sure he trusts that Stiles thinks this is important. He eyes alight on the bed and he gets an idea.

He takes a few steps back, keeping his gaze on Stiles as he watches Derek in confusion. Derek takes a deep breath and in one smooth motion he whips off his shirt, flinging it somewhere, and splays himself out on Stiles’ bed, his head leaning against the pillows so he can still see Stiles.

The room is almost immediately filled with the scent of arousal and Derek is quite pleased with himself.

“Dude!” Stiles gasps, flailing around wildly before finally settling with his legs crossed and his head resting on his hand with his elbow propped up on his knee. “Why!?” he starts to flail again but stops himself and resumes his position.

Derek shrugs apologetically as he sits up and is hit with another wave of arousal. He raises an eyebrow at Stiles.

“Abs.” Stiles whispers. Embarrassment creeps into his scent.

Derek smirks, “I had to be sure you weren’t blocking.”

Stiles glares, “There had to be better ways, no?” Derek shrugs again, not so apologetically this time.

“You couldn’t have just taken my word for it?” Stiles asks. “I promised I wouldn’t around pack anymore.”

Derek stares down at his feet, “I know. And I do trust you, Stiles. It’s just… I had to be sure. After,” he trails off. Kate. Jennifer. Random other people who have tried to lie their way into his pants. “It’s hard to trust about things like this.”

Stiles sinks down onto the bed beside him, startling Derek slightly. He didn’t notice him move. Stiles rests a hand on Derek’s shoulder, rubbing gently.

“What did you want to talk about that you needed me embarrassingly honest for?”

“You’re really okay with me not liking you back?”

Stiles closes his eyes, just slightly longer than a blink, barely noticeable but Derek is paying attention. “It hurts a little, having the person you like not like you back.” Derek winces and Stiles continues, “I’m not trying to make you feel guilty, I never wanted you, or Lydia, once upon a time, to feel bad for not liking me. That’s not why I did it. It’s just, I think you’re amazing and I thought you should know. I got made fun of a lot in school, with Lydia. But I mean, all I was doing was telling an amazing person that I thought she was amazing, I don’t see it as something to hide, and I know that makes me weird but I decided long ago not to care,” Stiles shrugs, offering Derek a rueful smile.

Derek loves him so fucking much. He blinks a few times at that. He hadn’t allowed himself to think that ‘L’ word yet. Snuck up on him after a summer of angsting.

“Stiles, I-“

There’s a knock on the door and then it’s opening a second later and the Sheriff is peering into the room. He glances between them, “You’re an adult now, Stiles, and you can do whatever you want but not in my house and definitely not while I’m home. Which I am now, for the rest of the night.” He looks pointedly at Derek’s shirt that’s still sitting crumpled on the floor and then at the space between the two of them.

“Dad!” Stiles groans, cheeks becoming bright pink.

The Sheriff points a finger at them before retreating, closing the door behind him.

“Please kill me.”

Derek huffs out a quiet laugh, “I can’t, I would miss you too much.”

“Please, Derek? I’ll love you until I die!” Stiles flops backwards so he’s lying on his bed.

Derek snorts, “that's what I wanted to talk to you about.”

Stiles flails his way back up into a sitting position, “What? No. Dude. That wasn’t even. That was nothing. I didn’t- It’s not- are you sure I can’t put up a magical blocker for like three seconds?”

“I love you too, Stiles.” Stiles gapes at him and Derek rushes on before Stiles can say anything, “And I was hoping you’d agree to go on a date with me?”

“Wh-But I-You-I-“

“Stiles.”

“Yes! Yes I would love to go on a date with you. Obviously. But like. What? Was everything? Earlier?”

“I had to be sure that you were telling the truth when you said it was fine if I didn’t like you back. I’m sorry, I just-“

Stiles cuts him off with a kiss. It’s short and sweet and chaste. Not at all what he expected their first kiss to be like. Especially considering he’s still shirtless and sitting in Stiles’ bed.

“I love you. Baggage and all.”

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think, or if you see any mistakes. Concrit welcome!


End file.
